From purely technical and commercial perspectives, the most rational approach for Pakistan is to directly import components for general-purpose civilian drones from China and assemble them domestically.
Many Chinese component suppliers accept ODM orders as well as requests for product customization—whether unbranded or branded according to client specifications. China has no export restrictions on civilian general-purpose drone components. (But, China's export controls impose strict restrictions on high-precision detection and sensing components and explosives.)
Russia has already adopted this approach. They established a shell company in Northeast China to procure large quantities of components from the Chinese market, which are then shipped back to Russia for assembly. Ukraine, rather than setting up such companies in mainland China, established multiple shell companies in Hong Kong, Singapore, and other Southeast Asian nations to source components for its domestic assembly plants. Meanwhile, most other countries acquire these "unbranded" components through standard international trade and logistics channels, whereas nations like Iran rely on multi-layered trade intermediaries for procurement. ------ These countries will not admit to it in public international forums. However, employees within these Chinese companies occasionally reveal such information on Chinese social media.
Manufacturing these small-to-medium-sized drones is not difficult. However, it depends on how you define "autonomous manufacturing." Globally, no country can manufacture such drones on a large scale and at a low cost without relying on China's supply chain. No exceptions!